Mercury
by exSurreal
Summary: 14 Oct: Rewrite & Part 7 Prequel to Blade. Diane meets Frost, and becomes Mercury. A complicated relationship. Note: Minor femslash situations. If you can't handle it, don't read it.
1. Human

Title: Mercury

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me, and no one would pay money for this.

A/N: It's that wacky part of the year where I rewrite and revise. But this time, I offer a new chapter.

Feedback: Opinions, ideas, criticism? Too much cussing, not enough cussing? More Frost or even more Frost? Shitty characterisation? Even weaker plot? That's what the review button is for.

---

**1. Human**

1988

The strobe lights wash the jumping crowd in blue; it's like looking at a series of Polaroids taken seconds after another, but don't quite connect. Bodies together feel like a sticky, sweating thing, and it's warm and it's sex. There's friction between the skin and there's the smooth sliding between material. Rubbing everywhere. She thinks it's a woman, but she can't be sure. Everyone everything feels the same it doesn't matter anyway there is no one only us.

The base is a lot like senseless thumping of headboard and together with the desperate happy screams of the crowd it's like she's in her flat with the neighbours trying to fuck themselves into oblivion in the room next door. The regular, synthesized notes sound a lot like the dead tone at the end of the telephone line when someone hangs up on her. Why is she here, when it's cheaper to masturbate?

It's better than sitting in her empty flat listening to her neighbours going at it next door. And it's a lot better than getting shit-faced in front of the television watching infomercials. She can't afford addiction. It was like holding a gun to your head and hearing it click empty because you can't afford the fucking bullets.

She finds that she'd been pushed to the edge of the crowd near the bar, so orders a light beer, and gatecrashes a circle of couches. Fuck RESERVED. Even moneyless shits like her had to have someone to sit.

There's two men sitting there already, and she drinks her beer with her legs sprawled on the table, waiting for one them to say anything. They don't. One has long blond hair and looks like he should be in a biker gang. There's a blond girl on his lap, and a mocha brunette under his left arm. He doesn't notice her for obvious reasons. The other is just watching, sneering. His hair's cut fashionably short so that the front is long and it falls into his eyes. There's something about them that scares her. They're dressed to casually, and they look ...hungry. Eager. Like the world was their oyster and they were about to eat it. The brunette with bangs turns to her, and she gets the feeling that he'd noticed her the moment she'd sat down, but just didn't give the shit. She tries to look disinterested.

"You can't read the sign?" he raises his eyebrows and she can't tell whether he's teasing or serious. He seems completely relaxed and controlled sitting on bright green couches with the music loud like gunfire.

"Fuck you," she says automatically and her heart isn't in it tonight. She takes a calculated drink.

He smirks then, sudden and deprecating.

Suddenly there was darkness like going blind and only the shouting of the crowd. It takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust and the emergency lighting to switch on. The crowd's almost silent for a heartbeat, but then a girl screams, setting off the chain reaction. The crowd surges towards the lighted EXIT sign, shrill and coarse voices calling out, the slapping of shoes and heels against the floor echoing until it sounds like a stampede.

_It's just a fucking blackout, dickwits._

Because the stupidity of people never stopped being funny, so she takes another drink and sits back. She never realised how single-minded a crowd of people could be, and they poured out through the middle with people getting stuck and crushed at the edges. Still, it take only about a minute for the last of the crowd run through the emergency exit, and the DJ closes a metal door behind them. The door's thick, and made out of iron or whatever it was, and she hadn't noticed till now. The door looks heavy and the DJ... well he looks fucking scrawny.

Suddenly, fluorescent lights flicker on, making Diane blink. What the fuck?

"Looks like we have a few smart ones," the brunette man says, and some people laugh.

She doesn't know what the fuck is happening, but she'd be fucked if she was going to sit next to the psychos in charge of the stunt. She backs away quickly from the chairs, while the brunette slides out of his chair, like the vinyl against acrylic. He smiles, and she thinks he looks pleased. No, he looks like he's having a fucking ball. She stands beside a raver, and she knows somehow that they're in this together. They're the same, and the brunette, the blond and his girls aren't.

"The fuck is going on?" asks a man in a red shirt from the middle of dance floor. "The fuck are you people?" When no one answers, he begins backing away as well. "Mother fuck," he mutters.

It's their expressions, the way they walk too smoothly and stalk you with their eyes. The raver murmurs, "I don't want to die," and for the first time in a while she actually cares about her life. She can't explain, but she knows doesn't want to die _like this_. Men dressed in black appear from nowhere, and she doesn't understand why, but the guns reassure her. She doesn't mind being shot, just not...

_Friendship and love don't exist_, she thinks suddenly. _There's only desperation._

"You smell that Quinn?" the brunette asked the blond loudly, but he's addressing everyone. He breathed in theatrically. "Now _that_ is what I call an appetiser. Nothing better than old fashioned fear to season a meal."

'Quinn' chuckled and stepped forward, but stopped when the brunette held out his arm. "No. I need these ones," he said dismissively.

"Aw Deac," the blond one was saying, "you already got a lot of them for the programme. Who's gonna notice if we take a few?" He sounds casual, but respectful.

"I'm going to notice, Quinn," the brunette says flatly. "These aren't for the programme. Fucking Jackal sent half my security team back in a box. But," he considers, "I suppose I can spare one." He's looking directly at her.

Quinn grins lecherously, and she looks away. "Just one," the brunette reminds him.

The blond is looking at each one very carefully. She can see him her peripheral vision and it seems like he's spending eternity looking at her. She doesn't shrink back, because she doesn't want to move. If she moves he might notice her more. He might pick her. She doesn't want that. She holds herself still with every cell in her body screaming to run.

Suddenly he steps forward and reaches out. She flinches away reflexively, but he grabs a girl behind her who looks on the verge of hysteria. She tries to get away, but the man's grip on her is so tight that she sees red spreading from the wrist. He pulls her toward the main door and she screams and kicks but his hand remains firm. The blond is grinning again, hungry and perverse as he whispers into the girl's ear. Diane looks away, and gives a quiet sigh of relief.

A man nudges her with the butt of the gun. Choices, choices. She lets herself be herded toward the same exit.

Outside, she watches the two men and the girl get into the limo and drive away. Around her, others are getting into their own cars, but she is being directed into what looks like the back of a refrigerator truck. She takes one look at the gun pointed at her, and climbs in.

---

Lined up against the wall, Diane is listening to the men holding the guns.

"Humans," he begins, "are the useless filth of this planet. Fortunately for you, Frost's looking for some new employees." The man chuckles, although the other men in black seem incorruptible.

He pulls a minor from the line, a boy with spiked hair and half his face pierced who probably got into the club using a fake ID. At the moment he smells like urine. The man pulls back the boy's head to show blue veins and white skin.

And without warning, the man buries his face in it, and red splatters onto the wall and on the ground. Blood pumps from the holes thick and red, and pools on the tiled floor. The boy's body crumples onto the floor.

The man has fangs. Fangs dripping with blood, like a snake. The word _vampire_ pops into her head like some stupid revelation. It was fucking crazy, the whole thing was fucking crazy. "You have a choice," bloodstained lips say, and laugh. "Who am I kidding? You don't have a fucking choice. It's either the blood or a Christmas dinner."

One of the men in black is carries a syringe with red liquid in it. She's never realised that blood could be so dark, and opaque. She knows it's blood. At least, if it were a film, it'd be blood.

The man takes her wrist with a cold hand. She takes the chance to look at him closely and he looks normal, if a bit pale. He has thick brown lashes, and he's smiling so faintly that she can barely tell. He looks her in the eyes when he injects her with it. It hurts, but Diane doesn't flinch, and after it's done, she examines her wrist. She doesn't feel different, and there is only a small red puncture where the needle went in. For a minute she wonders if this is some bad trip.

Her eyes catch the raver's and they look at each other blankly. If this were a film, she'd see defiance, love or fear.

But all she sees is her own emptiness reflected.


	2. Transitions: Not Anymore

**2. Transitions (Not Anymore)**

_Remember when you were seven and you used to think that monsters lived under your bed. Your mother bought you a nightlight, but somehow that made it worse. Now you could see the shadow monsters on the wall._

_Remember when you were eight and you moved to America. Your father ran away with his secretary, and your mother couldn't speak a word of English._

_Remember when you were sixteen and you snuck out of your room to go clubbing. You walked past dark alleys hurriedly, with words like "rapist", "mugger" and "murderer" going through your head at twenty miles an hour._

_Remember when you were twenty-two and your boss says, "You're fired." But then he adds, "Unless you don't want to be." And your boss is forty, balding, married with three kids. He has a Dalmatian named Pongo, and goes to watch his son play baseball on the weekends._

_Remember when you lived in a flat without hot water, with cracking walls and peeling paint, but still struggling to make ends meet. You ate canned food, and worked night shifts in a bar._

_Remember when your mother died in debt, leaving you nothing._

_Remember when you were human._

_Not anymore._


	3. Transitions: Don't Forget

**3. Transitions (Don't forget)**

Not human.

A better species. A predator. Natural selection working at its best.

You've been reborn. Fucking resurrected. You're Jesus. Why bother with earth when you've ascended into heaven? Get a new life. Get a new name. A new place to stay.

Enjoy the chase. Enjoy the sex. Enjoy the blood. Enjoy it all. Have a fucking ball.

Party, party, party.

Fuck the Council and their archaic ideas. They don't fucking care.

Loyalty is a paycheck. Betrayal is getting your fucking brain plastered on the ceiling. Don't fuck with me, and I won't fuck with you.

You work for me.

You work for Deacon Frost, and don't you forget it fuckers.


	4. Shadows

**4. Shadows**

1990

Some things never changed.

The speakers were pumping out the same sort of Euro-techno trash but now that translated to useless background noise. The crowd was still warm and damp, but now she stood above it, looking down on the lights dividing people into patches of colour and darkness. The walls were black with fluorescent graffiti that glowed neon, and on the far wall a VJ projected a violent video game onto a white screen. The dancing still looked like the same frenzied jumping, but that's not what she's scanning for.

She watched, observed, surveyed the swarm of people from above. People still went to these clubs out of desperation, but she's here for a reason and a job. Inside, security was a joke. It's the bouncers that do the real work, but she never got rostered because she didn't look menacing.

_Sunlight,_ she thought suddenly. That's what she remembered most, though she didn't miss it. Sunlight she associated with hangovers and her office job. There was no mystery in the day; it just magnified the bags under her eyes, the cracks in the walls and the garbage on the street.

Mercury was the closest planet to the Sun. Mercury was _bathed_ in sunlight. Ironic.

Yesterday she woke up with the sick feeling of being human. It left a nauseating taste in her throat, the taste of humanity. She hated it. Vessel, shell, corpse. Humanity was like poison.

Irony again.

She leant over the railing and checked her watch. Two hours and she could go home. Opening nights for Deacon Frost's clubs were always filled with hopefuls waiting in a cue outside. It happened every other week, but that didn't mean they had to be happy about it. Once in a while she caught glimpses of black uniform milling uncomfortably at the fringes. It was too easy to overlook someone's familiar, too dark to see their glyph.

Mercury was the Roman god of thieves, trade and travel.

She left her position and patrolled the catwalk for the hundredth time. It spanned the length of the club, and when she stood in the middle, each metal walkway lead into darkness. One hour and forty-five minutes left. A fight had broken out, but nothing serious. Yet.

Her earpiece buzzed. "Sign in."

"Sector A, all clear."

Mercury, also known as quicksilver, was a silver-white element occurring in group 12 or VIII, period 6. It's liquid in room temperature. It's toxic on contact because it can be absorbed through the skin. She liked that. She liked the idea of being a liquid predator.

"B clear. Not that I can tell anyway in this fucking crowd." She smiled when she heard that.

If she was honest, she'd chosen it because the dictionary had fell open, and it had sounded good.

"Sector C, clear sir."

In the corner, she spotted two black shadows that weren't dancers or part of security.

The earpiece crackled.

"Lauren, sign in." Seth.

Static. The shadows were two men moving stealthily along the walls. Both wore long coats despite the heat inside. They were bulky and clung at strange places.

"Lauren, stop fucking around. Sign in."

The bass kept the heavy beat, so loud she heard it in her chest. Or maybe it _was_ her chest. Apparently she still had a beating heart. She moved away from the railing to get a better look at the two men.

"Seth, I think we..."

Suddenly both figures stopped walking. She saw the glint of a gun, and already it was too late.

In the enclosed space, machine gun fire was louder than the music. The first line of people had already burst into dust, like a tidal wave washing away from the corner. Some of the team were already trying to push against the crowd.

"Two black males, right of the hall, heavily armed," she reported. She unholstered the gun. She hadn't fired outside of shooting range. Fuck.

Their ammo ran out and both dropped their guns. The taller one was faster, moving almost like a vampire. A human couldn't follow the blur. The other was a mediocre hunter, the type she could deal with. The fast one took a sword from his back, and the other took another gun. Frantic messages in her ear from the security. No one could get through the crowd. Guys guarding right side had been caught in crossfire.

She sighted down the barrel of her gun to the man's head. "I've got the one short one."

"Try to take him alive."

She switched aim, and shooting into the man's right arm. He clutched it pain, dropping the gun. She fired two more rounds. One missed, but the other hit the man's thigh, and he dropped to the floor with a splatter of blood.

The first of security arrived, their bullets making sparks against the men's torsos.

"He's wearing a vest!" she shouted into the radio, but no one could hear her over gunfire.

On the ground, they were resorting to hand combat. His sword whistled through the air, leaving bodies and limbs in dust. The metal was slick was blood and she couldn't get a clear shot because he was always moving.

"Fuck." He was quick, and the bullets ricocheted off the wall. For millisecond he looked up to the catwalk and saw her. His face etched into her mind. Maybe hers onto his.

She kept firing, but he was always one step ahead, and suddenly she had to reload. When she looked down again, all she saw was an exit door swing. And she swore again. She ran to along the catwalk. She needed to get downstairs.

"Sword-boy's trying to head for the right exit."

A single shot echoed.

"And the other sad fuck just finished himself."


	5. Deacon

**5. Deacon**

Mitch tossed his head back, blowing out a puff of smoke. He laughed with a high-pitched giggle that made Mercury smile. The girls around him loved it, and they crawled over him while he hooked his arm around one, and grinned. Once upon a time Mitch was drugged up raver. He was still a drugged up raver, but now he was getting paid for it.

She saluted him with what was left of her drink, and he blew her a kiss. Mitch always acted like an over-confident fuck when he was high. She found her glass being very lightly snatched away.

"Princess," Racquel whispered warmly, the blood leaving a red stain on her lips. She smelled like blood, alcohol and smoke. She wrapped her arms around Mercury, hands gently rubbing her waist.

"So Deacon's thinkin' about putting me on his _personal_ security team," Mitch was bullshitting, as Mercury tasted Racquel's lipstick. Racquel nipped her lips and sucked hard, lapping the blood welled up. Her own blood tasted like molten sugar, but that wasn't quite it. Racquel was sensual and her mouth was wet as she licked all the way up her neck and pushed her down onto the length of the couch. Racquel was straddled her waist. She was beautiful, but put on layers of makeup to cover it. Her cropped red hair and fringe made her look like an Egyptian princess. Mercury felt a type of drugged euphoria as Racquel forced her head to the side, and made her stare at a girl jacking Mitch off.

There was more licking, and then she felt her skin break almost too easily, as if her body wanted to be bled. Mercury closed her eyes. Racquel's tongue was running over the cut again and again and again.

_Remember when the debt collectors were knocking at your door and, _

"Mercury."

She opened her eyes to see Seth standing in front Mitch.

"Deacon wants to see you."

---

_Remember when the debt collectors were knocking at your door, and you told your boss you needed some cash. He was zipping up his pants with a satisfied smirk, but you just felt empty. He said, "Here you go," tucking a hundred down your bra. He said, "For services rendered," and you were just happy you had enough to get through a few days._

Frost looked up from the desk. "Who the fuck are you?" He sounded pissed off, and said it with the righteousness of a king lounging in his leather throne. She's only ever seen Frost in two moods.

Maybe it's the stark bleached hair. Or the fact she's out of uniform. Or maybe it's because she's a woman, and she's only seen him do two things with women.

"You asked to see me," she said. "Mercury."

"Mercury," he gave her a sceptical look and waved her into a chair. "Sit down." He casually pulled out a cigarette from a packet, and lit it with a disposable lighter. He leant back in his chair to smoke, throwing the objects onto the glass table.

This was the first time she'd been so close to him since her transition, and Deacon Frost looked exactly the same as she had first seen him, but so did she. Here was a man who was opening up businesses by the hour, buying out most of the downtown land and had recently bought a fucking skyscraper with his very own lavish penthouse. He was gaining followers and familiars by the second, and he made the House of Erebus twitchy. Deacon Frost was a legend.

The seconds ticked by. He smoked the cigarette with precise movements, getting no apparent joy from it. "So tell me, why are you still working for me? Good hours, good pay, good health plan, what? Fuck, your whole team got killed a week ago."

Mercury blinked. What kind of fucking question was that? What the hell was she supposed to say? What did he expect her to say? And she was working for him, and getting paid well for it. The best thing that happened to her was becoming a vampire.

"Because it's interesting," she began.

He was suddenly harsh. "Don't insult my intelligence."

"You're interesting. Your ideas," she corrected, "are interesting. Every other vampire in this city thinks that we have to share with the humans. But humans are our food, and you don't treat a steak like a friend," she said confidently. "I'm not going to work for cattle, and I'm not going to work for anyone who lets animals control them." And the smell. She hated the smell.

He was unreadably silent again. But that was good, because she didn't want to answer any more of his questions until he told her what he wanted. Seth hadn't told her, and Frost's question was the last thing she expected. She wanted to demand to know why, but unless you wanted your head on a stake, you didn't do that with Deacon Frost. You sat and waited patiently.

He sniffed, as if it were out of habit rather than anything else. "I need people for a new security faction and Seth thinks you should be promoted," he said bluntly. "Congratu-fucking-lations. You're hired." He tapped his cigarette against a black, square ashtray, and looked at her expectantly. "Assuming you want the job of course."

Experience had taught her not to say yes immediately. "What do I get out of this?"

A folder was tossed into her lap. Tower Security T1. The first page was a contract and keys in a plastic pocket. "When you decide, you can get your shit together and move there." The tag read: 008 Edgewood Towers. It was Frost's new skyscraper playground. "Now fuck off," he said irritably. For the first time, Mercury noticed a pile of manila folders stacked neatly on the table, and that one of them was open. He returned to studying it.

Mercury smiled.


	6. A Party

**6. A Party**

She'd been hired for security at Deacon's new building, and only at Deacon's building. Deacon Frost did not cut any corners. The towers had been built for him, so it didn't just have a spectacular penthouse, but also a lockdown system and a centralised underground security hub. She had room 008 in basement 1, and grey square thing that had two doors: one to the corridor and the other to the bathroom. Below her was a training area, a parking lot and then the hub under that. Deacon had a small group of familiars who guarded the building during the day, some of them posing office workers, or buskers.

To her surprise, Racquel had also moved in.

"You can't be tired already, Princess?" Racquel lay in the dark, her bed looking out to the city lights that dimly lit the room. She lived on the thirty-third floor, the closest to the double penthouse suite. It made her wonder why Deacon kept her around. There were girls that he kept around, but as far as she could tell Racquel preferred women.

Mercury sat at the edge of the bed, pale and naked. She looked like a slim waif sitting beside Racquel who had a definite curve and a pinkish tone to her skin. "God, I need a smoke." Racquel was delicious to look at, but her voice had always been harsh. Probably left over from too much smoking as a human. There was some shuffling as she fumbled for the packet.

"I should go." There was a familiar tightness around her mouth that told her she needed to feed.

An orange light appeared as Racquel lit a cigarette. "Why baby? It's your day off, and Deacon's having a wild party." The glowing tip bobbed up and down in the dark.

"Deacon's always having a party," she replied, unimpressed. She'd worked at enough of them to know that it would be filled with sycophantic adoring followers. "I need to hunt."

"There'll be plenty of blood at the party. And then there's dancing, and talking and more blood." Next to her ear, she said, "I promise you'll have fun." Racquel had left her cigarette in the ashtray, and had wrapped her hands around Mercury's waist. "I wanna show you off, Princess," she said and tongue-fucked her ear. Mercury smiled faintly.

"I don't have any clothes," Mercury murmured, but Racquel was running her mouth down her spine now, and she didn't mind going. Not if refreshments were going to be provided.

"I'll find you something," Racquel assured her and lay back on the bed. "Now where were we?"

---

'Something' was a white bra, a short skirt, and a jacket that didn't cover much. Racquel came behind her shoulder in the mirror and smiled approvingly. "Stop admiring yourself Princess, we have a party to go to." She kissed Mercury quickly on the lips, making her grin. A wild party. There were things vampires could take that would fuck them up like drugs, and Deacon would probably have everything available.

The elevator had a polished stainless steel interior that reflected the two of them in an industrial grey. Racquel hit floor twenty-five, and lit another cigarette as they waited. Vampires couldn't get cancer. Vampires couldn't get very much except dead. The elevator pinged, and the doors slid open.

The room was bathed in a deep blue with classy lounge music in the background, but loud chatter and the smell of blood and smoke showed it for what it really was. A blood party.

She delved into the crowd, following Racquel without thinking. She didn't want to think about how she should behave at the party of someone who was her boss and maybe even revolutionary leader. Deacon's parties weren't exactly the office Christmas type. Instead, she examined the glimmering reflections that water canals in the ground created on the walls. There was a three to one ratio of women to men, and Mercury wasn't surprised.

When she reached two Italian couches and she'd somehow gained a drink and finished half of it. It was champagne, the real kind imported from France, or so the bottles at the bar had said. Not that you could tell the difference.

Deacon looked up with interest. "Racquel," he welcomed, and stood to greet her, leaving girls strewn on expensive leather, all giving Racquel death glares. He kissed Racquel almost brutally like her owned her, and maybe he did. Deacon owned a lot of people. Either way, Racquel didn't seem to mind, although Mercury noticed her tucking a flap of paper into Deacon's pant pocket. He broke the kiss and smiled with satisfaction.

"My, don't you look lovely," he commented thoughtfully, looking at Mercury, but with Racquel latched to his side. He held her eyes so that she could almost see the thought flit across his mind. _Later._

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she returned in the same tone, but her eyes flickered to the ones on the couch, almost wetting themselves at the sight of Deacon. When she looked back, his face was sly.

"Perhaps I do." Racquel had been holding her cigarette idly, but now Deacon plucked from her hand for himself. Taking a drag, he tossed his head back and blew smoke to the ceiling. Racquel took the chance to press closer and kiss his neck. Mercury was torn between wanting to look away and wanting to just stare. It wasn't anything she hadn't seen before, except it was Deacon Frost.

"Hey, Deac! I got your main course right here!"

Mercury turned and remembered Quinn. She'd seen him around after the change: apparently he was in charge of some other security faction. She had laughed when she'd heard he was Deacon's right hand.

"For wanking," she'd said. But Quinn was loyal and stupid. She understood what was going on.

Quinn was holding two girls by the neck. Behind him a few guys brought up more humans. Some of them were crying, and Mercury could even smell the acrid stink of urine. But altogether they smelled of fear, and that smelled _so good_. Better than any drug. Mercury had never been to a blood party, but she'd heard about them. Humans were brought up from the street and set loose in the party. If they could survive the night they became familiars. If the host was extremely impressed, then they were turned instantly.

Deacon looked like he wouldn't be impressed by anything. Her night just got a whole lot better.

"There's so many of them," Racquel said darkly, "and they're all so fucking TERRIFIED!" She cackled. The delicious smell got stronger, and Mercury giggled when some of the humans started sobbing harder. And she kept giggling. The smell was making her light-headed and happy and so fucking hungry. In the corner, a lonely vampire had his hands down the front of his pants. So fucking hungry and _horny_. Her chest was heaving. She looked back to Deacon, but he was composed, with the touch of amusement on his lips.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, dinner is served," he announced, and a cheer went up from the vampires. Mercury found herself clapping with the others. "Let's eat!"

Some of them went for the closest prey, but Mercury wanted the best. She found the boy, about twenty, that was radiating fear. He was a short curly brunette with little freckles on his nose. Adorable. She smiled at him with her fangs, and heard his heart beat harder.

This was priceless. When she became a vampire, they taught her to grab people off the streets quickly without being noticed. There was fear, but not the build-up like this. Half the time the human was confused, and then it was dead before it knew what had happened. The blood was enjoyable, but the fear was like nothing she'd experienced. This boy was frozen with it.

He tried to close his eyes, but Mercury slapped him lightly. "Don't do that again." She didn't think it was possible, but his heart sped up again when she touched him. She hoped he didn't have a heart condition. She didn't want him to collapse when she was just beginning. Mercury smiled slowly, and ran her sharpened fingernails down his arms lightly, not breaking the skin. Oh yes, there it was. "You like that don't you, angel?" she licked her lips.

His terror held him to the spot, but it made him pliable too. "Why don't we get comfortable?" she asked, sitting him on a leather chair, and perching on his lap. "Now," she purred, "what's your name dear?" She ran her tongue slowly up the side of his face, and his breath hitched in his throat. "Hmm?" She put her hands on each side of his head, and dug her nails in slowly. Now he'd started screaming.

Mercury laughed. "Oh angel, you are perfect!" she exclaimed, and tasted her fingers experimentally. And suddenly, he was so delectable that she couldn't stop herself from biting down. The blood spurted into her mouth was better than anything else she'd had. She was so hungry. A warm wetness ran down the front of her body, and she was biting and pressing against him harder. She could hear herself in the distance, sucking and growling. Paradise, but it was suddenly over. Angel-boy's head fell back against the seat, his eyes wide and dead. Mercury lifted her head, and found that Racquel clothes had been ruined, although the leather chair only had a few flecks of blood. Most of it had gone down the front of the human's body. She licked a bit of it off, but what she really wanted was another live human. She'd learn to save the next one.

Around her, talking had started again, with most of the guests as bloodied as she was. There were only a handful of humans left, and someone had gotten the idea to chain them to furniture, so the guests could enjoy them slowly through the rest of the night. She looked for Racquel, and found Deacon smirking at her. He had a human girl who was naked and crying at his feet.

Mercury grinned back with her teeth.


	7. Blade

**7. Blade**

"Get up."

She was strewn on one of Deacon's luxury couches. Someone had already dragged out the corpses and cleaned the rooms. It was almost spotless and she could barely smell the blood under the cleaner and essential oils. The metallic blinds were down.

She had managed to clean up a little last night, but she was still wearing the same clothes, now stained a dull brown. She remembered collapsing against Raquel on the couch, and while she was gone, it seemed that there was still a few guests left.

Deacon was waiting for her and he wasn't happy.

She followed him into a room behind Japanese doors, and she had to adjust her eyes to the stark white of it. It was virtually empty, although the bed told her that she was in a bedroom.

She began unhooking her bra. To be honest, she didn't mind if it was Deacon. Women felt different to men and it'd been a while.

"What are you doing?" he asked impatiently, scornfully.

"What does it look like, baby?" she murmurs. She tugged at her skirt zipper. "How do you like it?"

"Leave it on." He picked up the bra and threw back at her. "Don't flatter yourself."

There was a flash of indignation and anger, but Deacon was already talking. She was still holding the bra. "You're the only one of my people alive to see that hunter." He'd turned on his laptop and a surveillance tape of that night was playing. The black hunter that moved too fast. The footage was grey, but she remembered how his body twisted and struck with a trained ease. Deacon paused the video at a face-first shot of the man, and zoomed in. Yeah, she remembered that face. Hard jaw, and determined lip. A look of disgust.

"Enlighten me. What did he do?" Deacon ordered. "How did he fight?"

"Well. Really fucking well. You can see for yourself. Sometimes he's so fast he blurs on tape. He's got a really big fucking sword, really big fucking guns with silver and he knows how to use them." She realised that Deacon was looking at her, and that she still hadn't put on the bra. But he wasn't looking at her breasts. He was looking at her face and considering what she's saying.

"Anything else?"

She looked back at the computer screen and frowned. "His weapons and his armour are customised. I haven't seen anything like it. He's too fast for a normal human – maybe drugs. It looked as if he wanted to kill as many people as possible."

Deacon tapped his fingers against the glass table, face in a sneer. He'd changed clothing from the night before, and was just wearing a white tshirt and jeans. He looked like any guy on the street, though he was too pale. It was attractive. Mercury wishes he had wanted sex after all. "You and Racquel are responsible for finding this fucker. No one fucks with Deacon Frost, and gets away with it."

He turned back to her. "This is priority. I don't care what it takes, you can forget security. I want this piece of shit found, and his head brought to me on a fucking silver platter. And then I want you to kill his family, his friends, his boss, his hairdresser and everyone he knows. Got it?"

She nodded.

"Alright." His face was suddenly calm. "The guy calls himself Blade. He's hit vampire hotspots before, but this is the first time he's come in from the streets. The House of Erebus are pissed because he killed a few of their familiars. Up to now, he's been small. There are groups of fifty hunters sometimes, so a single hunter isn't going to rouse much trouble. But this guy, this Blade is different. Like you said, he moves too fast. I want to know why. I want to know why no one could take him down and why he's hunting us. I want to know everything about him, including exactly how his weapons are made and work."

"I can do that." Blade. She'd heard that name before, but it was only rumours from the street. She'd heard about Deacon Frost's eyes being like blue fire, and turning people into stone too. Vampires were too goddamn superstitious. He didn't look anything like the Angel of Death.

"Good. You'll need Racquel to get in contact with the purebloods. I'll give you security clearance for any tapes you need. But keep it under wraps. I want everyone to know I'm looking for him, but I don't want everyone to know how." He finally looked back at her, and seemed to realise she was half-naked.

"Move in with Racquel. You have report to me every night, so you should be closer. Start with the club footage, and then arrange some business talks with the purebloods. Tell them I'll be there, doesn't matter if I'm not." He walked away from her and pressed a square hatch on the wall. A hidden door slid open leading to a bathroom.

"Wash up and put some fucking clothes on. You're coming to a little meeting with me. Think of it as short-notice bodyguard work."


End file.
